I hope you enjoy
looking at the various photographs from Vietnam. The enlarged views
have a
variety of information in the captions. I thought a brief backgrounder
might be of help though. Vietnam has a population of over 80 million
people with 80% of them living in small towns and rural areas.
Industrialization and tourism is still a relatively new development of
the past decade. Each area had a very different climate and feel. Ha
Noi(4.5m) the capital has a densely packed bussle. To the east is
the justifiably famous Halong Bay. Karst limestone foundations rising
from the sea make
for a very unique seascape. Two hours south is Tam Coc, an area
featured
in the 90's film Indochine. Five hundred kilometers further south is
the old Imperial capital city of Hue(300,000). Hue has
excellent cuisine and a comfortabe faded cultured feel. Hue was the
scene of some of the heaviet fighting of the American War with 40% of
the buildings destroyed when Vietminh and NVA regulars broke the Tet
ceasefire and seized the city for 26 days in 1968. The surrounding
countryside has a number of tombs of the Vietnamese kings. Traveling
further south has Da Nang(700,000) and the ancient port town of Hoi
An(80,000). Hoi An is a pleasant mellow smaller city that served as a
trading centre to China and Japan in the middle ages. The countryside
is never far from town and the various vendors pretty much strap the
countryside to their motos and drive it in for you to buy. For the next
leg to this journey please hop over to the Laos gallery. Thanks for
looking. Steve and Laura.
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1-20 | 21-40
| 41-60 | 61-80 | 81-100
| 101-120 | 121-140 | 141-144
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